Maren stood in what had once been the barrier checkpoint between the Lower and Middle Districts. It was now just a corridor, no different from any other in the station. There were shops here, community centers, places where people from all three former districts gathered and mixed.
He was eighteen years old when the revolution started. Now he was twenty-four, and he'd become one of the primary architects of the new educational system. His role was to teach history—the real history of the station, not the sanitized version the Council had promoted.
Today, he was giving a tour to a group of young people, children of the new generation, those born after the transformation or too young to remember the old system.
"This is where the barrier stood," he told them. "For twenty years, it divided people who were living just meters apart. It created inequality, resentment, and eventually, revolution."
One of the children, a girl of about eight, asked: "Why didn't people try to break it down before?"
"Fear," Maren said simply. "The Council had trained everyone to be afraid. They'd convinced the Upper District residents that they needed the barrier to protect them. They'd convinced the Middle District residents that the barrier maintained stability. And they'd convinced the Lower District residents that resistance was futile. It took brave people to overcome that fear."
"Like the girl who opened the barrier?" another child asked. It was clear they'd been studying about Sera.
"Yes," Maren said. "Sera, and Kael, and many others. They saw the injustice, and they were willing to die to change it."
He paused, looking at the young faces. "Their sacrifice wasn't wasted. The system they died trying to change has been transformed. But it took all of them. It took their willingness to stand against injustice, and it also took thousands of other people working for change in different ways. Change isn't made by heroes alone. It's made by people, together, believing that things can be better."
After the tour, Maren went to visit his mother. Lydia had stepped back from public life after the revolution, but she continued to work as a counselor and educator, helping people process the trauma of living under the old system.
"I was thinking about Sera today," he told her. "In the training sessions, they always talk about her as a revolutionary martyr. But I was remembering her as my sister. Remembering how much she wanted things to be different, how much she cared about people."
"She would have liked what we've built," Lydia said. "Not that it's perfect—I don't think she would have expected perfection. But she would have liked that people are no longer systematically oppressed based on birth."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"Do you think she knew?" Maren asked. "That she was going to die? That the barrier breach would lead to her execution?"
"I think she suspected," Lydia said. "But I think she also believed that her death would matter. And she was right."